Writer and Director Leo Leigh’s debut fiction feature, Sweet Sue, is a bleakly comic story about lives imperfectly lived, complicated relationships and, at times, abject misery, lifted from lasting gloom by lashings of absurdity, dark humour, and strong c…

Despite their huge influence on soul, jazz and hip-hop on both sides of the Atlantic, British band Cymande are presently still best known mainly to seasoned crate diggers and rare groove aficionados. This documentary should introduce them to a bigger audi…

Septuagenarian German director Wenders shows no sign of slowing down with this, his second release in under four months, following ‘Anselm’ his haunting profile documentary of artist Anselm Kiefer. Co-written by Takuma Takasaki, his latest profiles Hiraya…

DuVernay’s time-juggling, globe-straddling picture, based on the nonfiction book ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents’ by Isabel Wilkerson is ambitious but flawed. Ellis-Taylor plays Black author Wilkerson. It begins in the aftermath of the shooting of …

This multi-layered comedy drama, the debut feature of Cord Jefferson, adapted from the book ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett, plays like a literary and more artful take on 'Bamboozled'. Jeffrey Wright is Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison a writer and disaffected lec…

Like his previous book adaptation ‘Under the Skin’, director Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of the 2014 Martin Amis novel strips away most of the narrative, as well as Amis’s dark humour, for a stark and rigidly formalist depiction of the life of concentrat…

This history of the London repertory cinema, famous for its eclectic programming, is suitably rambunctious and freewheeling, even if the self-mythologizing is occasionally a bit much. Formed from a defunct Socialist collective, The Other Cinema, The Scala…

The first home-grown Godzilla film since 2016’s ‘Shin Godzilla’ winds the clock back to the aftermath of WWII to immensely satisfying and thematically rich effect. A 1944 prologue on Pacific island Odo has kamikaze pilot Kōichi (Kamiki) feigning a mechani…

This Paul ‘Paddington’ King-helmed prequel to the 1971 Gene Wilder-starring ‘Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’ has its moments but suffers from an undercooked, overly sugared narrative and lack of momentum. A rousing opening has Wonka (Chalamet) saili…

This impressively assured feature debut from writers-directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping is a consistently compelling erotic thriller fronted by excellent performances from the lead duo. Stewart-Jarrett is Londoner Jules aka fearsome drag queen div…

Stirring and genuinely enlightening and frank, the latest documentary from Julie ‘RBG’ Cohen profiles three American intersex persons, while charting the troubled history of how intersex folk, until shockingly recently, were regarded and treated by the me…

Septuagenarian director Wenders’ restless spirit shows no signs of abating with this visually beautiful and meditative portrait of German painter and sculpture Anselm Kiefer, presented in immersive 3D. Born shortly before the end of WWII, making him a con…

The latest from venerable Studio Ghibli director Miyazaki, based on the WWII set novel, feels very much like a valedictory effort with its thematic call-backs to earlier pictures. It’s 1944 and twelve-year-old boy Mahito (Soma Santoki) and his father Shoh…

The Scorsese influence hangs heavy over this 60s-set biker movie, inspired by the photography book of the same name by Danny Lyon. The picture uses Danny’s interviews with his subjects as a framing device. In a singsong gossipy voice, Kathy (Comer), a chi…

British director Oldroyd follows up his austere feature debut, the Durham set-period drama ‘Lady Macbeth’, with this stylish noir set in 60s Massachusetts. Eileen (McKenzie) is a secretary at a prison and a dowdy, listless loner who dislikes her fellow wo…

Filmed in Russia just prior to the invasion of Ukraine, this illuminating and visually striking documentary profiles Gennadiy aka Gena Marvin, a male-born Russian drag queen and artist provocateur. We meet Gena in her hometown of Magadan where she lives w…

Small but perfectly formed, Finnish writer-director Aki Kaurismäki’s first film in six years is a sweetly melancholy and tentatively hopeful depiction of a will-they won’t-they romance between two downtrodden Helsinki residents. Ansa (Pöysti) is a lonely,…

The second solo-ish outing for Brie Larson’s powerful superheroine busts a gut to be breezy, light and propulsive, but is undone by scrappy execution. The frantic introduction has New Jersey teen Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Vellani) being zapped from her …

Justine Triet's masterfully-executed procedural thriller works both as a tense courtroom drama and an endlessly fascinating character study. Hüller is Sandra Voyter, a successful German writer living in a secluded but smart chalet in the French Alps with …

This gripping documentary about North Koreans trying to flee the oppressive regime is as disturbing and harrowing as any horror film. It focuses on the fascinating South Korean Christian Pastor, Seungeun Kim, who, partly motivated by the death of his youn…

Australian director-co-writer Kitty Green’s follow-up to her deeply unsettling me-too drama ‘The Assistant’ is a well-acted and nuanced study of sexual politics, but ultimately feels less than the sum of its parts. Garner (who also starred in ‘The Assista…

The ever-daring Tilda Swinton doubles up here playing a daughter and her mother in this atmospheric chiller from collaborator writer-director Joanna Hogg. Filmmaker Julia Hart and elderly mother Rosalind (both Swinton) and Rosalind’s dog Louis (Louis) hav…

This impressive feature debut from writer-director Adura Onashile charts the experiences of a pair of refugees. The troubled Grace (French actor Lukumuena from ‘Divines’) has recently arrived in the UK from West Africa with her eleven-year-old daughter Am…

French documentarian Philibert is best known here for his celebrated documentary about a village school ‘Être et Avoir’. His latest is an equally thoughtful, humane and leisurely-paced profile of the disparate visitors who visit the L’Adamant Day Centre, …

Molly Manning-Walker’s impressively assured feature debut charts an exhaustingly hedonistic week’s holiday for a trio of sixteen-year-old Brit women and its sour comedown. Their A-levels just out of the way, Skye (Peake), Em (Lewis) and the ebullient Tara…

Following his last picture, the illuminating Polly Styrene documentary ‘Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché’, director Paul Sng profiles another pioneering female artist, once again drawing on the testimony of friends and family. Patricia ‘Tish' Murtha was born i…

Todd Haynes reunites with Julianne Moore to deliver his best film since ‘Carol’. Moore is Gracie, a middle-class housewife and part-time cake maker, who is married to the handsome and much younger Korean American Joe (Melton). They have twins who are abou…

Scorsese’s long-awaited adaption of David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book ‘Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI’ is immaculately-rendered, but unruly and overlong. A pacey opening illustrates via fake newsreel footage how…

British writer-director Emerald Fennell's follow-up to her bold debut ‘Promising Young Woman’ is a good-looking, but derivative and modish class satire meets erotic psychological thriller. Keoghan is Oliver Quick, a working class Merseyside English Litera…

The title presumably a nod to the child-themed classic ‘Spirit of the Beehive’, this impressive feature debut from Spanish writer-director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren is a lyrical and slow-burning but compelling and all-too timely exploration of gender i…

Taking its name from the Hudson-starring Douglas Sirk masterpiece ‘All That Heaven Allows’ this insightful documentary charts the secret history of the gay actor. When Hudson arrived in Hollywood he was snapped up by agent Henry Wilson, a notorious castin…

Writer-director Carol Morley’s singular picture is a fictionalised road/buddy movie inspired by the real Sunderland artist Audrey Amiss. Broadly neglected during her life, Audrey’s work, which consisted of sketches and paintings, was revaluated following …

This amusing comic drama charts the rise and rapid fall of Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company behind the titular communication device. It opens with tech nerds Mike Lazardis (Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Johnson) pitching an early version of the…

Based on a true story, this 2014-set Britpic follows an eighty-nine-year old pensioner as he makes his way across the channel to take part in the D-Day anniversary ceremony in Normandy. Caine is Bernard Jordan, the ex-navy man, living with his wife Irene …

Scripted by long-time collaborator Paul Laverty, the final part of venerable British director Ken Loach’s North-East trilogy and indeed his last film (and we’ve checked) is a typically passionate and timely paean to solidarity set in the ‘North of England…

The Marc Bolan tribute album of the same name was released way back in 2020, so this rockumentary (if you will) which mixes making-of-the-record footage and interviews with some of the artists involved, with archive footage of the singer, feels like an at…

Playwright turned director Celine Song’s debut feature is a strikingly assured, thematically rich and lyrical romantic drama that charts over three parts the relationship between two childhood friends into adulthood. Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) and Hae Sung …

Inspirational and horrific in almost equal measure, this comprehensive documentary charts the remarkable career trajectory of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. Growing up in a slum in Kampala, Uganda, Wine managed to secure a place at Makerere University…

‘Easy Rider’ late 60s’ disillusionment gives way to twenty-twenties’ nihilism in the punishing two-handed take on the American road movie. Dim, blue-haired twentysomething Jacob (director Monahan) and his motor-mouthed firecracker brother John (Loesch who…

As befits his usual screen persona, the debut feature from actor-turned-director Neil Maskell is an unsettling dark comic drama. IT worker Ewan Appleby (Shah from ‘Happy Valley’) and his wife Silke (Dohnke) have relocated from the UK to the titular town i…

Spanish auteur Almodóvar famously turned down the chance to direct ‘Brokeback Mountain’. This homoerotic cowboy movie is, he claims, his ‘answer’ to the question raised by that movie. It opens with dapper horsemen Silva (the ubiquitous Pascal, sporting St…

Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu’s latest is a sprawling state-of-the-nation drama with an all-too timely depiction of the resurgence of nativism in the EU/globalisation era. In an ominous prologue, a six-year-old boy witnesses something awful in …

Set in Fremont, California, Iranian-British director and co-writer Jalali’s picture is a whimsical and slight but ultimately affecting comic study of a lonely young refugee. Donya (real-life Afghan refugee Zada) is a twentysomething recently arrived in th…

Japanese writer-director Kôji Fukada’s latest is a deeply humane study of loss, distance and communication. Taeko (Kiumura) and her husband Jirô (Nagayama) live in a smart, small apartment in a nondescript housing block with their six-year-old son Keita (…

Adapted from his own highly popular series of 90s manga comics, Takehiko Inoue’s directorial debut is a rousing and immaculately-crafted basketball anime. The ragtag Shohoku High School basketball team are facing the fearsome Sannoh High School in the Na…

Co-written with Mauricio Zacharias, Ira Sachs’ latest is a far more austere and uncompromising examination of relationships than previous pictures such as the bittersweet ‘Love Is Strange’. German film director Tomas (Franz) lives with his British husband…

This likeable feature debut from writer-director Charlotte Regan plays like ‘Paris Texas’ reimagined as a cheeky and irreverent council estate comedy. Georgie (Campbell) is a wily twelve-year-old who has been managing by herself since the death of her mot…

Destined to be hawked around as ‘big-hearted’, this broad small-town musical romance is big on visuals but undone by poor writing. Helen (Brealey, Molly from ‘Sherlock’) works in the titular chicken-packing factory in a small Welsh town where she spends d…

A coarse, sweary, canine-only version of ‘The Incredible Journey’ might sound like a mildly amusing idea for a short skit, but proves almost unbearably tedious over a ninety-minute stretch. Reggie (voiced by Ferrell doing his wide-eyed innocent thing) is …

Few would have expected great things of this remake of the poor 2003 picture, which was in turn adapted from a Disney theme ride, but this is truly cursed stuff. Stanfield leads the far-too-good-for-this cast as Ben Matthias, an astrophysicist who has dev…

This bittersweet overly-determined exploration of storytelling, memory and the suffocating consequences of small-town life, follows a middle-aged author returning to his hometown of Cognac for the first time in decades. Shortly after arriving, author and …

The title of this illuminating and irreverently frank documentary from trans woman music producer-turned-director D. Smith, which profiles a quartet of trans women call girls, is taken from ‘Sissy Man Blues’, a 1934 recording by obscure blues singer Kokom…

An unpleasant if inevitable whiff of commerce pervades this extended Playstation ad, based, remarkably, and alarmingly, on a true story. It begins with Nissan marketing executive Danny Moore (a charmless Bloom) pitching a competition to the company heads …

This raunchy comedy, scripted by comedy writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, is amusing enough, thanks to spirited turns from the lead quartet and jaunty direction from Lim, but it runs out of road two thirds of the way in. A prologue illus…